Coda Protocol Testnet [Beta] Retrospective – Phase 1

Coda Protocol’s Phase 1 of the public Testnet Beta has concluded! We had 8 successful weeks of testnet on a 1-week release schedule. The technical advancement that was made would not have been possible without the participation of enthusiastic members in the community.

Some important milestones that we hit include:

• 126 community members participated
• 96 users connected to the testnet
• 270,000+ Testnet points* were awarded
• 10 really cool and useful testnet related resources were created by the community (check them out under community highlights)

After Phase 1, we will progress to more stable, and scalable testnet releases and will move from a rapid iteration cycle of a 1-week cadence to a 2-week cadence to support this, read on to check out what new and exciting things to expect, and sign up here to be notified via email when public Testnet Beta Phase 2 is open!

Table of Contents

Public Testnet Beta Phase 2

Retrospective Phase 1

Community Highlights

Cool Community-Created Testnet Tools and Guides

Public Testnet Beta Phase 2

Phase 2 of the testnet will begin on September 24th with the first challenge, Filet Mignon. Registrations for this Staking Challenge are open here until September 24th 2pm UTC-7! Sign up to stake on the genesis block of Testnet Beta Phase 2!

In Phase 1 of the testnet, we had one-week release cycles which gave us a chance to test out the feature-set in Coda and ensure that everything worked. In Phase 2, we’re switching to two-week releases to build upon Phase 1’s successes. Two-week release cycles will enable Coda developers to focus concurrently on maintaining the durability of each network, while also prioritizing feature development and protocol improvements.

Goals for Phase 2 include:

• Testing the durability and stability of each network and targeting high uptime
• Building momentum through each release, so that features introduced each cycle strengthen in quality in the following releases
• Automating the points leaderboard to update user participation in real time
• Lowering block times, improving throughput, and ramping up protocol parameters to ensure faster finality
• Improving developer / user tools, and incorporating CLI feedback received in Phase 1

Phase 2 release dates:

• Release 2.1 (Filet Mignon): 9/24 — 10/7
  • Make sure to sign up for the staking challenge before the deadline on September 24th 2pm UTC-7
• Release 2.2: 10/8 — 10/21
• Release 2.3: 10/22 — 11/4
• Future releases TBD

Retrospective Phase 1

Let’s take some time and reflect on the remarkable testnet metrics from the past two months:

• 8 networks spun up, each testing different features in Coda
• 104 ledger accounts generated on the network
• 36 unique peers connected at one point
• Thousands of blocks produced

In addition, Phase 1 of the public testnet featured two significant firsts for cryptocurrencies:

1. Usage of recursive zk-SNARKs to enable a succinct blockchain

   In week 6 of Phase 1, we ran a SNARK work challenge where node operators on the Coda network ran SNARK worker nodes and helped compress transactions. This resulted in:

   • 4192 SNARK proofs produced
   • 8853 codas in SNARK fees accrued

   Furthermore, it was a chance to test assumptions on the SNARKetplace economics and ensure that incentives were aligned.

2. Implementation of Ouroboros proof-of-stake consensus in a production network

   Week 4 featured a block producer challenge where stake was distributed amongst 30 keys belonging to the community, allowing users to produce blocks and earn coinbase rewards from staking their coda. By the end of the week, nodes across the world (including nodes in Russia, Canada, USA, UK, and Asia) had produced blocks and participating in permission-less and probabilistic proof of stake consensus.

Both of these technical achievements tested in practice helps harden and march towards a strong mainnet release candidate for Coda. We look forward to seeing even more technical developments and accomplishments from Phase 2.

Community Highlights

It was incredibly fun to see how users became leaders in he community and how passionate they were with being involved early in the development of Coda Protocol. Members steadfastly showed up in full force every week for the testnet releases, completed challenges, and built exciting things for the Testnet Beta. We want to give a special shout out to these highly technical leaders in the community and reward them with a head start on the Phase 2 Leaderboard. Please join us in congratulating them!

Final Top 10 positions on the Phase 1 Leaderboard:

1st garethtdavies (starting at 1000 pts* in Phase 2!) 2nd Alexander (starting at 900 pts* in Phase 2) 3rd y3v63n (starting at 800 pts* in Phase 2) 4th whataday2day (starting at 700 pts* in Phase 2) 5th Dmitry D (starting at 600 pts* in Phase 2) 6th Ilya | Genesis Lab (starting at 500 pts* in Phase 2) 7th LatentHero (starting at 400 pts* in Phase 2) 8th novy (starting at 300 pts* in Phase 2) 9th ansonlau3 (starting at 200 pts* in Phase 2) 10th ssh (starting at 100 pts* in Phase 2)

Community MVPs: (+200 pts* head start in Phase 2)

• Garethtdavies for actively participating every week in the Testnet Beta Phase 1, finding the most bugs, building a CODA block explorer on top of Coda GraphQL API, and sharing his testnet experience and guides with the community in his blog. An overachiever!
• Whataday2day for actively participating every week in the Testnet Beta Phase 1, and always being around to help out community members.
• Pk for sharing additional notes for setting up a node on the testnet. It’s very much in line with the team’s spirit, since it’s also open source! Everyone can join and collaborate here!

Cool Community-Created Testnet Tools and Guides

We also want to put the community spotlight on the following very cool things that community members built and created. Make a note of these tools and guides, as they might come in handy when you’re going to set up a node on public Testnet Beta Phase 2!

• Blockchain Explorer built by garethtdavies
• Instructions for windows users to set up a node on Testnet Beta using WSL, thanks to whataday2day .
• Blog: First Steps with Coda GraphQL API. Thanks [garethtdavies](https://twitter.com/_garethtdavies) for showing how to get started with Coda GraphQL API, which allows the development of future tools such as block explorers, wallets, etc.
• Blog: Prototyping a Coda Blockchain Explorer. Thanks to garethtdavies
• Additional Notes + Screenshots for Setting Up a Testnet Node. Thanks to pk . It’s OSS, so everyone is invited to join and contribute!
• Snark Tool for Ranking SNARK Workers (fees and number of zk-SNARKs). Thanks to [garethtdavies](https://twitter.com/_garethtdavies) for creating and sharing the script with the community!
• Live demo to set up a testnet node (Russian). Thanks to Alexander
• Testnet Set Up Guide (Russian). Thanks to Alexander
• Testnet Documentation (Simplified Chinese). Instructions for connecting to testnet translated to simplified Chinese, thanks to ansonlau3
• Testnet Documentation (Traditional Chinese) Instructions for connecting to testnet translated to Chinese. Thanks to ansonlau3

Our entire team is grateful for the community’s active participation in making the testnet a positive experience for everyone. We have been working hard to get Coda Protocol to the state it is today, and it has been exciting and fun to see you testing it! Stay tuned for more exciting things in Phase 2 and see you over on Discord!

*Testnet Points (abbreviated pts) are designed solely to track contributions to the Testnet and Testnet Points have no cash or other monetary value. Testnet Points are not transferable and are not redeemable or exchangeable for any cryptocurrency or digital assets. We may at any time amend or eliminate Testnet Points.